Now, in the third part of my “7/15/05″ trilogy which will complete my introduction: The catalyst that spawned this blog.

I was recently checking out the Live 8 concert videos from a couple of weeks ago. Now, the purpose of Live 8 is not to make a bunch of money. It is not a fundraising benefit for Africa — it is a ton of bands getting together, probably being paid nothing beyond what it costs them to play, and playing music in a worldwide event to get the attention of the G8 world leaders who are convening regarding the large number of problems and injustices plaguing Africa now. They have the ability to change history, and the Live 8 event was thought up basically to encourage them to make the right decisions in regards to the future of Africa. These bands are letting the G8 leaders know that we really care about them making the right decisions.

I think it’s incredible that a band like Pink Floyd would put aside their bitter differences that caused all the lawsuits and splits two decades ago – to put up with each other because there is something more important out there than their (relatively) petty squabbles. They didn’t want to even be in the same room as each other, but they realized how much it would mean to the world if they reunited the original lineup for a few songs. A number of other bands did similar things because they realized how much of an impact it would have.

When the bands played at Live 8, they did not choose to play all their current hit songs in effort to promote their newest album – they picked songs that had meaning and relevance to the event. U2 played “One”, Jars of Clay played “Show You Love” (which was actually written about Africa), etc.

Then Linkin Park gets on the stage and shows us the meaning of contrast and irony. Now, I am not a fan of Linkin Park because I think their lyrics are whiny and all their songs sound the same. But I am not going to say that because I don’t like them, they should quit making music, because they are good at what they do: selling albums. But I think there is something very wrong with agreeing to play at Live 8, fully realizing what you are supposed to be standing for, and then play four songs which all complain about how much your life sucks and how no one likes you.

The purpose of Live 8 is to “make poverty history” in Africa. And here is an American band of upper-class white males who have sold 35 million albums worldwide, and are all probably multi-millionaires. I doubt anyone in the entire band has ever in their life had to go without food for a single day due to a lack of money, and they have the nerve to go and whine about all of their problems:

And I got nothing to say / I can’t believe I didn’t fall right down on my face / Look at everywhere only to find / It’s not the way I had imagined it all in my mind / What do I have but negativity? / I can’t trust no one by the way everyone is looking at me

This does nothing but confirm the suspicions of Africa, like in Hotel Rwanda – that we in America are too concerned about our own lives to think about anyone else in the world. “Sure, we would love to play in Live 8 and show that we care about Africa by getting on stage and singing about how we are miserable, because even though we have a bunch of money and we never have to worry about anything, we still think that people should listen to us complain a bunch.”

It’s got to be difficult to think about the unimaginably hard lives Africans lead when you’re in the front row screaming along with the band’s angst.